seriously, did that just happen?

 it isn't a full moon. it doesn't feel spring-like outside, so it can't be spring fever. maybe it's cabin fever, re-lived. maybe people are just dumb fucking dummies lately, but i have had a week of moments where i have to stop (*have* to, there is no choice in that) and ask, "seriously. did that just happen? i need a witness."

we have a hardscape with gravel in our front yard. i used weed death and waited until the ground was weed free before rolling out that fancy weed control tarp prior to laying the gravel, to no avail. false advertising, right? buying a weed control spray in a concentrate was less expensive and contained less packaging than buying 4 gallons of the stuff pre-mixed. so i carefully read the directions and put the new weed death into a generic 1-gallon sprayer. halfway through, the seal busted open and sprayed my left side and arm, all the way up and under my chin. apparently i was not supposed to pressurize the canister *quite* that much. point taken. clothes changed. take two. less than 10 minutes later, it happened again, narrowly missing my eyes a second time and spraying my right side. seriously. did that just happen?? i passed the torch to the hubs, who finished up without so much as a piff.

so this label thing hasn't quite been what was advertised. i have slogged through it, even though i don't like it much and won't be volunteering to do it next year. i made a commitment and i will see it through. the school had a contest last fall. i tallied up all the points from each classroom and made a tidy little spreadsheet, which i passed on to the principal in january. the principal cornered me this week and bent my ear about how upset the PTA was that i never rewarded the winning classroom. i wasn't aware that i was supposed to get the reward in the first place, let alone barge into some teacher's room and pass out ice cream in the middle of the day. i talked to three PTA members and discovered that the principal was the only one upset... and she told the entire committee that i dropped the ball and never gave her the information. seriously. did she just say that?? way to go... i am slowly losing interest in volunteering for anything next year.

i answer the call of bag check, finding several liquids in large containers. i don't even have both hands on the bag yet and the owner of said rolling storage closet snaps her fingers in my face and says, "hurry this up already, i have a flight to make. let's move it already. i'm late." seriously. did that just happen?? at this point, my blood simultaneously boils and turns to molasses. i have already determined that if she snaps her fingers in my face again, she will be frog-marched off the checkpoint. i do not slow down, no matter how much i want to, but i do my job efficiently. i block her several attempts to yank the bag from my hands and then put it through the x-ray one more time. as i tell her to have a nice flight, she flings, "if i make it now, thanks a lot." to which i reply, "oh, you'd better make it, or i'll have to see you again. we don't want that at all, so you'd better RUN." of course she was boarding at gate 14, the furthest away.

having several offspring of my own, i am perplexed by the "mommy's first stroller syndrome" of getting the largest, most outlandish, and freakishly huge strollers on the market today. and then proceeding to drag these heifers through an airport while carrying the 55 pound carseat, two diaper bags, a wheeled carry-on, a laptop bag, a purse, a bag for the carseat, (a bag for the carseat? isn't the baby going to be in the carseat? if not, why didn't you check it out front? needed your gym workout did you?) a stroller cover (really, is it going to rain on the plane??) and a backpack. america needs to downsize in every-which way. while performing a bag check, i glance over and a toddler has taken the safety leash (for the stroller, not the kid) and wrapped it around his neck about 14 times and is on tiptoe, trying to figure out how to get undone. where is mommy? wrestling the carseat into its bag. where is daddy? wrestling everything into the stroller. god forbid you put the kid in the stroller. i shrieked, dropped what i was doing and un-wound little junior while mom and dad looked on, stunned. stunned into immobility. seriously. are you still just standing there? "a little hint: child goes into stroller first. everything else can wait."

a portion of this week has felt a lot like christmas, minus the thousands of wrapped presents and freezing my ass off. i cannot figure out why we have been so busy, but tuesday took the cake. tuesday is supposed to be The Day to Travel because crowds are light and fares are cheaper. well, looks like people are taking advantage of that. i got up, showered, ate (on tuesday it was three waffles and 2 cups of coffee), and headed into work. i nibbled on some dried peaches during the morning briefing. because i get up before 2am and eat right away, i am one of the first people whining about when we will begin breaks. it has nothing to do with laziness; i am HUNGRY. breaks usually start around 5:30 and are staggered by team. so, on this busy day, imagine my surprise to hear my manager (not my supervisor; her "boss") grumbling, "this is insane. you people always take your breaks during the peak busy rush of the day. tomorrow we won't start breaks until after 6." he says. holding a danish in one hand and a coffee in the other. and about 6 days of flubber around the middle to survive on if starbucks should be closed for a week for health violations. seriously. did that just happen?? so i am supposed to go more than four hours without food at a breakneck pace on a checkpoint that does not have a reliable climate control system? i lost it. and almost lost my job. i told him off in front of my trainee and passengers. and i let him know that if he wants me to get a little note from my physician about the dangers of starving me and my high metabolism, i would create a paper trail from my checkpoint all the way to his office.... and i would make sure it did not stop there. i have already fainted twice on the checkpoint in the past 2-1/2 years. both of those dates, astonishingly, it was close to 7:30 and i had not yet had a break. hm. we shall see. i already fought this "you're not allowed to eat" battle in high school and won, bitch. my paper will beat anything your rock can think up.

cooking dinner on my friday... easy, fast, and well-loved pasta bake with sliced leftover grilled sausages. i am exhausted. i have not had a nap after work for the past three days. i am getting sore from being on full-duty again. (insert sad face) the phone rings and it is the elementary school's number. puzzled, i answer right away, mentally counting how many kids i picked up. the vice principal is calling to inform me that seamus had to go to the office today with another friend because of an incident. this is totally unlike seamus. the story goes, someone farted, either seamus or Friend. my son and friend laugh about it and then say, "ew, it smells like Other Person in the class." they have a good laugh and then Other Person, who is also in fifth grade, tells the teacher. there's a pause in the conversation. i offer a confused and anticipatory, "...and?" oh, no, that's it. seamus had to write a letter of apology and is missing recess on thursday. "...for?" i ask again. for making inappropriate remarks and hurting Other Child's feelings. seriously, am i getting this phone call for real?? i stifle a giggle and reply, "seriously? farts are totally appropriate for 5th grade boys. farts are hilarious. i'll let him know not to name names and we'll call it a day. deal?" it wasn't really a deal, i could hear it in her voice, but i am not punishing my kid; we had a talk, about 2 sentences long that went like, "don't go around saying that people smell like shit, even if they do." and fifth graders who smell like farts should take that message and a shower. middle school will be a WHOLE lot worse than someone saying you smell like a fart.

let the drinks flow.... this week is DONE. thursday is my day of rest. i'mma eat all i want when i want, not garden, not count labels, no one snapping fingers at me, no toddlers, and i will smell like a fart because i'm not taking a shower until i have to go pick up kids. fin.

the story from the top

 as it was told to me, from several sources.....

during lunch on tuesday, 27 april in the year of our lord 2010, ms. mileidy and her friends (who shall remain nameless), were sitting on their lunchboxes, engaging in silly talk. apparently, one of such nameless friends yanked mileidy's lunchbox out from under her, causing her to topple backwards off the bench and split her head open on the radiator. another nameless classmate walked mileidy to the nurse, bleeding profusely from the head. (i was concerned to hear that an adult did not accompany them, since at any moment my child could have fainted, resulting in further injury...but...) she was cleaned up, bandaged, and the cafeteria lady brought a tiny stuffed bunny to the nurse's office while they waited for me. older brother seamus stuck his head in the doorway as he passed and uttered the encouragement of: "don't die." ah, the love.

at precisely the same moment, i was walking through a cellular void in the airport from my checkpoint through the underground tunnel and parking garage to my car. when i got the message, i frantically drove 25 miles to the school and took the leidybug to the emergency room. after following a series of confusing directions from my garmin, and ultimately finding the blue emergency hospital signs, we arrived on the GBMC medical campus. now i understood why the garmin was confused.

as far as "ease to get there" is concerned, GBMC fails utterly in my book. not only do they get an F, but a triple F for eFFing Failure. i spent 15 minutes looking for a place to park, because the 10 spaces marked "emergency patients only" were taken. yup. all 10. parking, parking everywhere, as long as you want to walk at least 1/4 mile to get to the door. carrying an injured child. bleeding from the head. what if it had been a compound fracture of the leg??? no wheelchairs available at the elevators, nothing. aside from the parking fiasco, GBMC was awesome.

we were in and out of the emergency department, from front desk to discharge in under 90 minutes. they did a great job of hiding exactly what was going on, without scaring my daughter. miliedy was immensely impressed with the twinkling stars on the ceiling above the nurse's station. first, nurse kristin removed the sarajevo war victim head dressing prom do and swabbed leidy's head down with some iodine solution, making her bloody head look a sight more gruesome. next, she gave mileidy a numbing gel and an ice pack for 10 minutes. then the doc came in and stabbed my child in the head multiple times with a syringe the size of a honda fit to numb her up quite a bit more. fortunately leidy had no idea that there was a needle involved... that could have gotten Fugly. lastly, a package arrived looking oddly like a cross between a cordless glue gun and a star trek phaser, with a fully loaded complement of staples. doc trimmed a few hairs from around the wound, told mileidy to brace herself for a little pressure and stapled away.

and my babycakes did not cry. not a tear. she squeezed her new bunny (named stitch, by the way) when it hurt, just like the school nurse taught her. after staple number four, she un-squinched her eyes, and said, "whew. glad that's done. it was starting to hurt a lot."

i watched some guy staple my kid's head. *gulp*

it took a lot for my mommy instincts to not take over and rip the gun from his hand and staple his nuts to his chin. my hands were thrust into my pockets, balled into fists, repeating "it's a good thing, it's OK, he's a helpy-guy..." inside my head.

it was harder to keep her wiggly little butt seated during the paperwork part than it was for her to get her head put back together. she walked herself back to the car, but was pale, shaky and light-headed by the time we got there. (stoooopit parking garage.) and then i was like, "um, i don't have any cash to pay for parking." there wasn't exactly an ATM available either. i don't feel upset at all about the parking lot losing my $4 in revenue. i mean, who checks their pocket or stops at the bank on the way to the ER anyway??

The Bravest Princess In The Land requested papa john's for dinner, so papa john's she got. she relaxed at home for the night, and was sad to hear she would miss her turn on the school's wednesday morning announcements. so i told her she could go for the first 5 minutes of school. as much blood that gushed from her head, i'm sure a bunch of kids were scared, so i thought it would be good for them to see that she was not dead. we woke her up twice in the night to make sure all was well, and to deliver tylenol. she was cheerful, if pale, this morning , and extremely proud of her brevity. and her cyborg-stapled head. which brings us to lunch time on wednesday, where TBPITL is watching barbie movies, learning how to use the intercom feature on the telephone to fetch mommy, and is headed to nap land shortly.

TBPITL thanks everyone for their well wishes, and wil be returning to school thursday, minus gym and recess for the remainder of the week. she is scheduled to get her staples removed next wednesday.

ring, little phone, RING!

 details, details. oh, find the devil in these, baby.

on march 10th, i fell down half a flight of carpeted stairs in our house. i missed the first step down and caught air, landing on two steps flat on my back, slightly to the left of my spine. the small box of frozen foods i was carrying to the freezer landed on my chest. we debated about whether to call an ambulance and decided that since i *could* get up, insurance would prolly not cover the ride. i changed out of jeans into fresh pajamas and off to the emergency room we went.

they took x-rays of my lower spine, where the pain was most severe and they came out clear. i was given percocet, an Rx for hydrocodone, told to see my doc and sent home.

monday, march 15th, my doc put me on 2 weeks no duty, gave me an Rx for an anti-inflammatory, a muscle relaxer to help me sleep and said REST FOR REAL.

all went swimmingly. i took my meds less and less. i followed-up with my doc on monday, 29 march, who said, if you're not in pain, then stop taking the anti-inflammatory and see what happens. she asked me to do a few things to show her my range of motion, which was great. i told her i'd been lifting full laundry baskets occasionally over the past couple of days to test my strength. no pain. she said if i had any further troubles, i'd likely have to go to PT. i was released to full duty.

wednesday we walked & biked down in DC for a few hours. i was sore, but not overly so. i rested all day thursday. 3am friday i woke up in pain. PAIN pain. i can't recall exactly, but i might have woken up in a sneezing fit; that is not an uncommon occurrence in spring. i got up and got the heating pack for the pain. i rested again all day friday.

i went back to work on saturday, 3 april. i was tired and a little sore after the first day, so i decided to take the anti-inflammatory again. sunday was a bit worse. monday after work, it hurt to breathe. tuesday morning i took aleve in addition to the anti-inflammatory. i took my oxycodone and a muscle relaxer at bedtime and hoped i'd wake up on time for work on wednesday.

wednesday i just gritted my teeth and made it through the day. it felt like a knife wound in my chest with every breath. which is odd, because the initial injury was in my lower back. i went home and slept poorly, not hungry, and after dinner, looked up chiro in my insurance plan. once i found what i needed, i drugged up for pain and tried to sleep again.

thursday i went to my initial chiro appointment. they ordered another set of x-rays to get a picture of my upper back that had not been x-rayed in the ER. i was informed that there are several possibilities to justify the pain in my chest. 1) the pain in the injury to my lower back was so severe, it blocked the lesser pain of the upper back at that time. 2-a) the anti-inflammatory medicines took care of the upper injury altogether and i didn't notice any problems until after i stopped taking the anti-inflammatory and went back to work and/or 2-b) re-injured that area at work. that second part is unknown, since i can't pinpoint exactly what set it off. 3) the new x-ray showed a slight possibility of a compression fracture of one of the vertebra - the one that had a rib connected to the pain in my chest. apparently the rib bones can "resonate" pain from an injury all the way through the bone. i was also informed that not all fractures show up in the initial x-rays. doc asked me to wait until the radiologist confirmed that diagnosis before treating the ribs.

friday, radiology hadn't read my pictures yet, but doc said he would call me in the afternoon if there was indeed a fracture. i was told to go ahead and work the weekend because he wanted to see me again on monday after three days of light duty - to see if adjustments to my duties needed to be made and judge how well i was holding up. i was given a back support to wear at work and the doc filled out a light duty request for work. no lifting over 5 pounds. paperwork was faxed to work for duty restrictions. since i have to show up live and in person to receive a light duty accommodation, i drove my little self to HR... who promptly said "we don't know why this other guy says you can only do certain things, but the first provider says you're fine."

wouldn't that be the difference between a general practitioner and a specialist? hm.

three weeks of ass-sittage right into 5 days of full duty. perhaps i wasn't ready to come back to full duty and sure, maybe we should have thought of that. *shrugs* but we didn't. i felt just fine at the time. no hard feelings over here. so what is the deal?

HR sent me home. meanwhile the clock is ticking. i haven't heard whether or not i am going into work saturday, my monday, when both my doc and HR are closed, with no hope of communication until mid-shift on real monday. and i am out of sick leave, thanks to the genius at HR who cleverly just submitted all 15 of my days off as sick leave, not as partial sick leave and partial annual leave. tell me exactly why they ask for paperwork if they are going to do it their own way? i kinda wanted a little in the bank, yo. it's MY leave and i should dictate how it is spent. my back is sore from the treatment this morning, my guts are a wreck from worry (over the bid, the pain, radiology, and if i'm going to get slapped with unpaid time off). i've actually lost 4 pounds in 10 days from all this stress. can we please????

i'm going to carefully put my uniforms in the laundry (one at a time, no heavy lifting, i know!) and try to nap a bit. updates will be forthcoming. i effin hope.

tales from off-work

 1. i found a mouse in a trap this morning before i fixed my coffee. damn right i went, "eeeep!" apparently neither the eldest nor the husband saw its still, still form prior to fixing their own early morning foodses. lucky for me, i am raising two man-cubs. the elder man-cub held the ziplock baggie open while the younger man-cub picked up the trap by the trap and dropped it, mouse and all, into the zipper bag. which went into the trash can, which was tied tight and taken out to the trash can by the elder. all while i stood on the other side of the kitchen and tried not to puke and scream. and then we all washed from our fingernails to our elbows.

2. thanks to madame jenny, we have chili in the crockpot for tonight, which will be the mother of all rush-jobs due to copious events for aforementioned younger man-cub. yay for crockpots!!

3. the 2008 yaris is in the shop. took it in for an oil change. apparently the tires suck, including the one housing a nail (again?? where are all the buttloads of nails we keep bringing home??) the tires on our van are waaaaaay more than 2 years old, but, we paid for longer wear tires, so maybe that is why they have lasted so long. we can foot the bill, thanks to my super-duper job status, but we'll hold on to the van for another month until we have fun money stashed away.

4. speaking of super-duper job status, i did not get promoted. apparently only boys got promoted this time around. something smells hinkey and i think a call to the EEO might be in order, especially since they did not even call me for an interview... which is required in the hiring process. that is part of the "why we did or did not think you were qualified" portion. suckage. good thing i wasn't counting on it.

5. in other news, i am recalling the reason i got a job in the first place while on forced vacation. damn i'm bored. i have a follow-up visit on monday where hopefully i will be released to full-duty. i am going out of my way to be cautious, but test my limits in a job capacity. i am off the pain medication and have been for a week now. (w000t!)

6. in still other related news, i cleaned off my scrapping desk. holy mother of unwashed socks. i haven't scrapped in over a year (no time, sadly) but i have been quietly gathering a stock of supplies (as seen by the many bags from scrapbooking stores) for when i do make time for my favorite thing to do. well, second only to public harassment and embarrassment in the airport setting. while the vast majority of it was, indeed, my stuff that needed to be put away, the stuff i found in the various layers makes me want to scream at my housemates to STOP PUTTING YOUR GARBAGE ON MY DESK!!! get your own desk to clutter FFS. a goodly amount of stuff that wasn't mine was actually bound for the recycle bin. because, you know, i'm the only one who can figure out if we are finished looking at school worksheets and junk mail.

7. life insurance policies. we upgraded mine because now that i work, i'm apparently worth more (and can afford more) in coverage. sounds easy enough. BAHhahaha!! so wrong we are! while i understand the companies not wanting to take on a client in the throes of death, i must say, "oh. My. Friggin. Strawberry-Fields-Singing-Volkswagon-Bus-Driving-Long-Haired-Hippie. God." they wanted to know so much about that fall down the steps... and about my wisdom teeth extraction from 2007. as a matter of fact, i do not recall how much pain medication i took, or even the name of it. and nope. don't remember how long i took it either. hello?? i was high? three years ago??? i do know, however, that the name of the medicine was in the news about being banned or something. dude made me google that. read that again: dude. asked. me. to. google. that. information. it's vicodin, for the record. if i get denied because i fell down the stairs last week, the I-Team will be doing a story.

8. in less than 10 minutes, my evening gets complicated. off i scoot to fetch children, begin the homework, make cornbread and feed kids and begin the evening rush to school AND scouts tonight. revving engine...

Stoney River

So, there's this thing that people do, I think it's called "going out on dates." We did that. I know, right? We got all gussied up with neckties and high heels, left the kiddies at home with another adult and everything. The planets aligned just so and out we went to a restaurant rather new to our area; newer than us anyway. Being from Nebraska, I was raised on good steak. Not just any steak. The word "steak" itself on the menu does not guarantee its quality. It's the high quality, grain-fed beef that I miss, and where we went hit "fabulous" right on target. Enter Stoney River Steakhouse of Towson Town Center.

We walked in from the mall entrance and it felt like we walked into a fairytale ski lodge. The mall cacophony was unbelievably hushed. The decor was warm and inviting, with large stone fireplaces, mountainside greenery and candle-like lighting from sconces and chandeliers. Seating was arranged around the dining room at different heights, with seating in the center of the room on soft patterned sofas at low tables. Rising to the edge of the room, cozy semi-circle booths were set on pedestals, overlooking the quiet bustle of patrons. We were seated toward the back of the restaurant in one of those elevated booths, which suited us just fine. The mall was forgotten, but for a split-second view of the escalator through the large front window.

Our server, whose name I have forgotten only because I took so long to sit down and write, was awesome. Our young Tom Cruise look-alike was charming, knowledgeable and didn't bat an eye when I purposefully asked for a Pinot Grigio instead of a proper red wine to accompany steak. He was attentive enough to our table, without dropping by every five minutes. He answered our questions about the menu without hesitation and his enticing descriptions convinced us to order an appetizer.

Our Whiskey Shrimp arrived at the table perched on thick slices of lightly toasted garlic bread, the creamy Jack Daniel's grainy mustard sauce drizzled lightly across the platter. The sauce had a nice tart bite to it and the jumbo shrimp perfectly matched the crispy toast. I have never been a seafood fan, but I swore that night, this very dish would be served at our daughters' weddings; it was that good.

Perfectly timed at the finish of our appetizer, our steaks arrived. My 7 oz Cabin Filet was done to a turn; medium well all the way through and slightly more well done on the outside, just the way I like it. It was moist and juicy, which is difficult to achieve sometimes because I like my steak so well done. I selected the baked potato, due to my issues with dairy, and as potatoes go, it was certainly a potato. The Coffee-Cured Filet was divine. Marinated in coffee and then grilled to a medium perfection, this fork-tender steak had the texture of pot roast. It had a dark and nutty flavor that fared surprisingly well with the beef. Absolutely, no-holds-barred, the best steak I have ever tasted in my life. The string beans were light and crisp, and I'm told that the au gratin potatoes were tender, creamy, and flavorful.

We were too full for dessert, but the Triple-Layer Chocolate Ganache Cake covered in chocolate shavings almost won me over. Stoney River will be seeing me again. Count on it.

randomness

 whirl-ing der-vish: noun

Definition:
1. somebody working very quickly: somebody who busily does many things in quick succession.

after the past nine days of sloth, something had to be done. today i banned the wii and the computer, slipped into whirling dervish mode and have a fully clean house for the first time in over a month. that is not to say that we forever live in a pigsty, just that it hasn't ALL been done ALL at once in the same day for a very long while. i take the baby step approach to cleaning usually. i'm too wiped to do it all at once, so i do one room a day. which makes for a house that looks like it's perpetually dirty.

i started the kids out with the speech, "you're going to tell me how much you hate me, throw things around and cry anyway, so please get it out of the way now." silence. "no, really. go ahead. because i'm not listening now and i won't be listening later either, so get started. you have five minutes to get it out of your system. then, we clean." collective groan. but no tears. and no one slapped anyone else, which is a definite improvement over last time. for some reason they feel the need to slap one another whilst cleaning. motivation? *shrugs* i even made them all get dressed. strangely enough, they didn't argue about that either. i think they have finally wearied of pajama day, part nine.

the bathrooms are clean. the floors have been swept, vacuumed and mopped - even under the beds. laundry is caught up, except for the random mittens and hats that will go in with towels later tonight. the kitchen counters have been cleaned off, except one which is always a work in progress. the stairs are hairless. the sheets have been stripped, changed, cleaned, and put away. the games are back on their shelves. books are back on their shelves. dinner is in the oven. the rugs have been shaken. the dishes are done. DONE!!!!! not one sitting on the counter for later! recyclables are outside in the bin. backpacks are emptied and ready to go back to school...someday, maybe in march at this rate. even the dog bowls have been washed. i think the only thing i didn't get to is windows. i loathe washing windows anyway, so meh.

since the beginning of the year, i have been handing the kids more responsibilities. they are grumbling about it, but they have finally seen the payoff. the light went "blink" when i told them to pick up their bedroom floors so i could vacuum and it only took 20 minutes. it didn't take hours because i've been making them tidy up every day in little bits. then i gave them a break while i worked. then i asked for another small chore. it didn't even take 20 minutes. the light blinked again. the whole day went smoothly because they are now used to the fact that the little steps i've shown them make the bigger jobs feel smaller.

i have succeeded.

in other news, the snow is coming down again. schools are closed for tuesday. one of four galloped down the stairs to tell me about the snow and then wandered away. the tadmaster says he hopes he makes his flight on time tomorrow, but i know better. who the hell would want to leave sunny warm arizona and come home to frozen dirty slush??! "the county is reminding residents that it is their duty to keep sidewalks clear." not saying anything against the snow removal crews because they had a monster job, but how the sock am i supposed to clear the six-foot piles of frozen glop they deposited on my sidewalks? yeeeah-no. not getting cleared by me anytime soon.

and mileidy has discovered build-a-bear. lord help us all.

snow cream

"when life hands you lemons, make lemonade.  when life hands you four feet of snow, make snow cream."

~3 quarts fresh snow (clean - as in, snow that has begun falling more than two hours ago)

1 cup milk

1/2 C sugar

scant 1/2 tsp vanilla

mix milk, sugar & vanilla together. pour over bowl of fresh unspoiled snow and mix until "ice cream" consistency. be creative and add fruit, nesquick, cinnamon, or use evap milk instead of regular milk.